WASHINGTON — “Murray Christmas! Get it?”
Such a goofy greeting and follow-up question — exclaimed by Amy Poehler and Julie White as they burst into Bill Murray’s hotel room — sets the post-modern tone for “A Very Murray Christmas,” which never takes itself too seriously, laughing constantly at itself, and inviting us to do the same.
The hour-long special just hit Netflix on Friday, casting Murray as his sarcastic self in a reunion with his “Lost in Translation” director Sofia Coppola and his “Scrooged” screenwriter Mitch Glazer.
Just like his Harold Ramis masterpiece “Groundhog Day” (1993), Murray is once again stranded at the mercy of a major snowstorm, only this time, he isn’t in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania; he’s stuck at the Carlyle Hotel off Madison Avenue in New York City. It’s here that he languishes, fretting that no one will show up to tape his holiday TV special, run by his wired producers Poehler and White.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJP3db3R014
Don’t expect much of a plot from this snowed-in premise. It’s all an excuse to put on a massive variety show, masked as a mini-movie. Dial your expectations to this mode for maximum enjoyment.
Gone are wild characters like Carl Spackler in “Caddyshack” or fantastical situations like “Ghostbusters.” But if you like the deadpan Wes Anderson version of Murray, you’ll have a permanent smile on your face, bouncing from room to room, cameo to cameo, song to song:
- Murray sports reindeer antlers to sing Dean Martin’s “Christmas Blues” with the piano accompaniment of David Letterman’s longtime sidekick Paul Shaffer.
- Murray and Chris Rock don matching turtlenecks for a hilarious “Do You Hear What I Hear?”
- Murray tries to seduce Jenny Lewis during a duet of “Baby It’s Cold Outside” at the hotel bar.
- Maya Rudolph belts “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” with wait staff on backup vocals.
- Rashida Jones and Jason Schwartzman sing a sweet rendition of Todd Rundgren’s “I Saw The Light” as a bride and groom whose wedding has been postponed by the snowstorm.
- And, most extravagantly, Murray imagines a drunken daydream of Miley Cyrus in a Santa dress singing “Sleigh Ride,” “Let it Snow” and “Silent Night” atop of Shaffer’s piano, while George Clooney pops out from behind Christmas trees to croon, “Santa Claus Wants Some Lovin’.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_DKWLyAGoU
Some of these numbers work, and some of them don’t — you’ll just have to see for yourself — but it’s all so gloriously self-deprecating that we don’t mind a few misfires among so many bizarre, once-in-a-lifetime dream pairings of our era’s various talents. It’s like we’re playing a pop culture version of Secret Santa — we don’t know what gift we’re about to receive, or which celeb is about to give it to us.
The Clooney payoff is fitting, considering an earlier exchange between Murray and Michael Cera:
CERA: “This sad excuse for a Christmas special. … It’s starting to seem more to me like a ‘Chris-mess.'”
MURRAY: “We have George Clooney.”
CERA: “I rest my case. You saw ‘Monuments Men?'”
Sure enough, Poehler and White immediately pipe up to reassure Murray, “You were so good in that.”
In the end, if you’re looking for a holiday movie to watch — one with a plot, fictional characters, you know, a movie — you might head to the box office to try the family fun of “Meet the Coopers,” the sophomoric raunchy comedy of “The Night Before,” or the dark horror comedy of “Krampus.”
But if you’re looking for a nice variety-show diversion of song and dance, stay home on the couch, grab a warm blanket, spike some eggnog, and fire up Netflix for “A Very Murray Christmas.” You’ll at least be amused, and at most, you’ll quote Cera by feeling the wrath of the “Murra-cane.”
That is, if you own Netflix. Murray doesn’t. So he’ll never watch it.
